Blood, sweat and tears on a day of unlikely heroes

Amazing stories of survival have emerged with neighbours fighting through the rubble to pull people to safety. Susan Bennett, 48, rushed out into the street still in her dressing gown to make sure her daughter and family, who live two doors down, were okay.

Amazing stories of survival have emerged with neighbours fighting through the rubble to pull people to safety.

Susan Bennett, 48, rushed out into the street still in her dressing gown to make sure her daughter and family, who live two doors down, were okay.

She was met with a scene of utter devastation.

Susan said: “I came out and saw that two of the houses had blown up. All my windows and kitchen units had come off. It was such a loud explosion we didn’t know what to think.”

Susan and daughter Sally Ann, 32, raced over to where 82-year-old Marie Burns lived – and where the explosion had reduced her house to rubble. The pensioner had been making porridge when the blast ripped through the kitchen.

Susan said: “We pushed open the remains of the front door and she was there.

“All her hair was burnt and she was covered in porridge. She’d been making breakfast. All her neck was covered in blood.” Mrs Burns was rushed to Wythenshawe Hospital where she last night remained critically ill with 30 per cent burns.

Mum-of five Kim Derbyshire, who joined in the frantic rescue, is a close friend of Mrs Burns. She called her a ‘wonderful lady’ and said she was a ‘popular figure in the community’.

She said: “It is a total tragedy. She is a wonderful lady and is always concerned about others. I was at school with her son so we go back a long way. It’s like the stuff of a horror movie – you never expect that to happen to someone you know.”

Susan Bennett’s nephew, Vinny Jones, was also hailed a hero after pulling a mum and her little boy to safety.

He and fellow neighbours could see Anita Orzanska and her two-year-old son, Rabin, from number 74 stuck on the first floor of their house.

Vinny positioned a ladder against the wall and climbed up to bring the little boy and then his mother back to safety.

He said:¿“I just reacted instantly. Everyone was pulling together. We’re only a small community in Irlam, everyone knows everyone, so we just look after each other.”

Meanwhile, a father described his desperate efforts to save his three-year-old son who suffered a suspected fractured skull when their home was destroyed by the explosion.

Ellis Barker’s dad, Leon, 34, broke down in tears outside Salford Royal Hospital as he told how he woke to find his family under a pile of rubble.

He said: “It was like dream. One minute I was asleep and the next I was standing on the roof of my house searching through rubble for my kids.”

Leon and his partner Sarah Jenkins miraculously escaped with minor injuries alongside their other children, Taylor, eight, and 11-year-old Joshua.

Witnesses described the devastating scene of total panic as they rushed to where the houses had been torn apart.

Sarah’s best friend, Lisann Lightbody, 31, who also lives on Merlin Road, told how she joined the frantic rescue effort along with a team of around 15 residents working together to pull the children out.

The mum-of-four said: “I went there straight away and it was total madness. The house had gone completely and you couldn’t even see Sarah and the kids, you could just hear them screaming. Her house has totally been destroyed but the main thing is that they all get better. You can repair houses but you can’t repair people.

“I can’t imagine what they've all been through. It will stay with them forever.”

Grandad John Doyle, 73, of nearby Martin Drive, helped to pull Taylor out of the rubble after hearing his desperate cries for help. John, a retired demolition worker, said he first thought a plane had crashed.

He rushed out of his home and were confronted by chaos with ‘buildings collapsing’.

John said: "I heard a big bang, all the windows went through and I expected to see a plane had crashed. It was carnage, then I saw a dad trying to pull his kids out. He was digging in the rubble so I went over to help.

“I acted on instinct. I was concerned because children were trapped. I managed to get a little boy out and put him on the grass until paramedics arrived. He was crying for his brother who was also trapped.